Multiple mixed services can be transmitted over one channel in digital television because digitalized transmission has been implemented in digital television. Therefore, digital television service is not a single television service but refers to digital services, including video, audio, image and data etc, transmitted via television transmission channels. At present, as digital television is stepping into a rapid progress stage in the world, services related to digital television increase greatly. When programs and services provided by digital television for users keep increasing, Electronic Program Guide (EPG) is becoming an indispensable tool for users.
EPG may provide users with an easy-to-use tool with friendly interface for rapidly accessing program-related information. Users may use EPG to watch information on programs to be played in the near future on one or more channels or even all channels. At the same time, EPG may provide a program classifying function for helping users to browse and select various types of programs.
A prior art method for generating EPG is as follows: a Service Provider (SP) obtains EPG data from different EPG sources every fixed interval through a server, and combines the obtained EPG data to distribute it to terminals. The EPG sources include Internet, digital program broadcasting station, and teletext service providers.
A disadvantage of the above-mentioned prior art method is that, in this method, a SP generates and provides a uniform EPG for multiple terminals. Therefore, the EPG is not customized for each terminal and cannot meet specific requirements of each terminal on EPG.
In this method, EPG data is obtained from multiple different EPG sources and the number of the acquired EPGs is large. The EPG contains much useless information due to no interaction with terminals, and therefore cannot satisfy specific selection of programs by terminals.